Going On
by BrownEyes11
Summary: The death of Anna tears the Fitzgeralds apart, and, like everything that's broken, there are only two choices. They can either pretend, while the wound digs deeper, fractures further; or they can begin to mend.
1. Chapter 1

Author's Note: I really hope you guys like this. Please review, if you read it. I really want your feedback. Should I continue? Should I stop? Should I drown myself in a lake? You can decide! Tell me if you love it. Tell me if you hate it. REVIEW (please). :)

I stood on the beach, gazing out over the ocean.

Ha. That sentence. It could mean anything. To that man over there, huddled against the biting wind, embracing a woman, it is full of beginnings. I see only the end.

I remember one time, when Kate was in remission, when we took the kids here. Jesse, spindly and skinny, like an insect, played tag with the waves. Whenever he fell, Brian would catch him. I wonder if Jesse was ever afraid, ever scared that the ocean would leap forward, and swallow him up. Or, if he was sure, beyond all doubt, that no matter what the water did, no matter what the world threw at him, his father would always catch him.

I realize that we pretty much abandoned Jesse. It wasn't as though we planned to. We didn't _want_ to give up on our only son, but it just happened. That's what tragedy does to a family. It pushes and shoves, fills up all the little cracks, until there's no room for anything else.

That day at the beach, Anna and Kate played next to Jesse, mirror images as they danced in the sun, droplets of water hanging in their hair like diamonds, sparkling in the sun.

I didn't see how it started, but I was terrified by how it nearly ended.

I suppose Kate pushed Anna first. She was always the more assertive one, Anna more easy-going.

Anyway, somehow or another, Anna ended up in the water. She was never a strong swimmer, and at age four, she didn't stand a chance.

I remember seeing her fall back, and the ocean leap up and swallow my little girl, greedily pulling her away.

I remember my first thought at seeing Anna swept away: If she dies, who will save Kate?

Then my second thought: Oh my God, my daughter!

My feelings were lost in the tizzy of the next few hours, pulling Anna from the water and comforting her, rubbing her back and easing her gulping sobs.

Only later that night, lying in bed with Brian snoring gently beside did it come to me. I hadn't thought of Anna, of her life; only of Kate.

And now, ironically, the child who I had been sure of, the one who was always there, had been swept away from me.

I gazed out over the ocean, the gray water, like steel, folding in on itself, again and again, a never-ending pattern.

What do you do when your world falls to pieces, when your security is ripped out from under you? When the entire world as you know it collapses around you, leaving you to pick up the shattered pieces, and try to fit them back together, when you already know there's something missing?

The woman and man had left, and I was alone on the beach. I was alone always, even at home. Even surrounded by people, I was still alone. I was alone inside myself.

I turned and trekked back through the white sand. My hands shook as I pulled the car door shut, and my eyes stung with unspent tears.

The road blurred as I drove, my tears finally betraying me, and I pulled over.

Hunched over the steering wheel, I cried. I cried for Anna, for me. I cried for Jesse, and Brian, and Kate.

I cried and cried and cried, and when I thought I was done, I cried some more. Tears ran down my cheeks and my face was stiff with salt.

My phone rang in my purse. I fumbled with the strap, my eyes still blurred by tears, and pulled out my phone.

"H—hello?" I whispered, my voice hoarse.

"Sara?" came Brian's panicked voice, "Sara! Where are you? We were so worried._ I_ was so worried! Are you alright?"

"No." I said, "I'll be home in ten minutes."

Brian said goodbye, and hung up.

This time, as I drove, I did not cry. I did not think of the sad things, or the loss. I did not think at all.

Rain began to beat down on the windshield, and thunder shook the world.

I could feel the tears, the sadness, lurking there at the edge of my awareness, but I pushed them back, and eventually I could not feel them any longer.

I pulled into the driveway, the tires crunching on gravel. I sat in the car for a while, trying to hold onto my delicate composure.

"Sara!" Brian sighed when I entered the living room. He rose from the couch and gathered me in his strong arms. And I fell apart again.

"B—Brian! Oh, Brian she's gone!" I sobbed, and he held me.

"I know, Sara, I know," Brian murmured, and I could hear the tears in his voice as well. They were like flu in this family. You never knew when they would pop up, and when they did, they were highly contagious.

We stood there like that, supporting each other. It was only when the screen door slammed, Jesse coming in from the backyard, droplets of rain glistening in his dark hair, that we broke apart, wiping away tears.

"Mom, when's—" he broke off, seeing the tear stains on our cheeks, the redness of our eyes.

I looked at him, really looked at my son, for the first time in so long.

Jesse had always looked more like me, while Kate took after Brian. We were both skinny and dark. We were both on the tall side.

But when I really looked at my son, I realized I did not know him at all. I did not know his face, his eyes. Who was this boy—more of a man now—standing in my living room? What had happened to the little boy who had tugged my hand, beckoning me to see the picture he'd drawn? Had it really been the same child who had called to me in the night? Where had the time gone? Where had _he_ gone?

When had my son stopped being my son?

"Jesse…" I said softly.

"Mom," he replied, as a single tear rolled down his cheek.

Jesse stepped forward, and for the first time in forever, I took him in my arms. He was now taller than me, I realized. He was wiry and strong.

"Mom," he said again. "Mom, I've missed you." I knew he didn't mean my little day trip, and I sighed.

"I missed you too, Jess."

Kate came down the stairs, and in my mind, I almost laughed at the irony. We'd all been avoiding each other, in a way. We didn't go out of our way to talk to each other. We didn't stop, and initiate a conversation, just to talk. We'd each been existing in our own little bubble, and now here we were, all together.

Kate said nothing, but came over, and wrapped her arms around Jesse and me.

I felt Brian place his arms around us, and we stood there, a group hug, a family.

A broken, shattered, worn, uneven, imperfect family.

But still a family.


	2. Chapter 2

**A/N- Review, Review, Review!**

**Disclaimer- I don't own My Sister's Keeper. Jodi Picoult does. What else is new?**

Sara's POV

I lay in bed, and stared at the ceiling, pretending to be asleep, while Brian did the same beside me.

"You're awake." I said, not a question.

"You too."

I rolled over to face Brian. His features swathed in shadow, he could have been anyone.

"Sara," Brian said slowly, "What if we…what if tried again?"

"Tried what again?" I asked.

Brian said nothing, and I knew the answer.

Kate's POV

My dream went like this:

_"Anna? Anna, where are you?" I cried, searching the misty darkness, seeing nothing._

_In the distance I saw a figure, a shadowy shape that could have been anyone. I knew who it was._

_I took one step forward, then another, my arms outstretched as I ran to embrace me sister._

_"Anna!"_

_I went right through her, not even feeling it. She was there, and not there, as insubstantial as a cloud._

_"Kate." She said. "Kate, it's time to let me go." And she began to fade._

_"Anna!"_

_She was gone._

"Anna!" I screamed, bolting up. My breath was heavy and ragged. Just a dream.

I threw the covers aside and stood slowly, imagining that I had to be careful, that I could not disturb a single item. It distracted me well enough.

I reached the bathroom and flipped on the light. I stood, staring at my reflection in the mirror until it blurred. Until it could have been anyone.

Brian's POV

It was supposed to get easier, I thought. Easier as time went on. Easier to see her picture. Easier to eat her favorite food, to pass the closed door that was once her room.

"You're awake," came Sara's voice from the dark beside me.

"You too." I said. Not that I hadn't known. It was just easier to ignore it, like it was easier to ignore than to acknowledge when tears dripped down Kate's face at the dinner table. Easier to ignore the lump in my throat when I found one of her shirts in the laundry.

Had it been our fault, in some way? Had we done something to make this happen? Were we bad parents? Bad people?

"Sara," I said slowly. "What if…what if we tried again?"

"Tried what again?" She already knew.

"Sara, we can't go on like this."

She didn't answer, and I continued before I lost my nerve. "Another chance, you know?"

"We're not replacing Anna," Sara said coldly, and she rolled away from me.

I said quietly, into the velvety darkness, to Sara, to myself. "I didn't say we were. We never could."

Sara rolled back over.

Jesse's POV

I tipped the contents of the bottle down my throat, then threw it aside, with the other ones.

I stood up, and then feel back down again. A tear ran down my cheek, and closed my eyes, squeezing out more.

What was the point in wiping it away when I already knew more would take its place.

I learned a long time ago that I can not drink the pain away. I can not cut the pain away, I can not sleep the pain away. I can not will the pain away, I can not dream the pain away. I can not pray the pay away.

I reach for another bottle anyway.

Anna's POV

Heaven is nice enough, but it's not home.

Looking is nice enough, but it's not being.

Nothing further.

Not for now.


	3. Chapter 3

Author's Note- Enjoy this chapter! I think this is what should happen, and I hope you agree. Review if you like it, review if you hate it! I'm sorry it's so short. I think most of the chapters in this story wil lbe that way.

**Disclaimer- I do not own My Sister's Keeper, or any of it's original characters.**

Sara's POV

Two red lines. A cross.

Wrapped in paper towels, I threw the white stick in the trash, and ripped the foil packaging on another one.

Two red lines.

"Dammit!" I thumped my fist against the counter, collapsing to the floor in sobs.

I didn't want to…I hadn't meant to…

"Dammit!" I said again.

I couldn't avoid it anymore, I decided. I sat down in front of the computer and waited for it to boot up, staring blankly at the screen.

I typed my query into the search engine, my fingers shaking, causing mistakes, and pressed enter.

_Happy Days Abortion Clinic _

Nothing happy about it. I scrolled down.

_Westview Abortion Clinic_

Too close to home. I don't want to be seen.

_Wicca and Alternative Religion Clinic of Termination_

There was a time when that would've made me laugh.

_Shoreline Abortion Clinic_

Perfect.

I printed the pages, and cleared the search history. Brian would never know.

I pulled into a parking space. The parking lot was nearly full, I noticed.

Lot's of people make mistakes.

I shook my head to clear the fog.

The dread that had been sitting in my stomach reared its head, and I felt my stomach heave.

A woman walked by, and gazed at me, heaving into the bushes, sympathetically, "Don't worry, I was just like that too. Just got my procedure done Monday. Worked like a charm. You'll be back to yourself in no time."

I looked up at her receding back, the tears blurring my vision, and choked on another sob.

I couldn't do this.

Without realizing it, I reached down and placed a hand on my stomach, still flat, no signs of what lay within.

"It's okay, baby," I murmured.

Jesse's POV

I stared at the gum-popping girl behind the counter at the gas station mini mart, with her limp, over-ironed brown hair that she had tried to turn blonde. Her small brown eyes, heavily lined with mascara, her thin lips coloured an unnatural shade of pink.

I walked over to her, struck up a conversation. She flirted back.

Soon she was leading me into the back room of the store.

Just another way to make the pain go away.

I couldn't do it.

I left.

She was angry.

I didn't care.

_I don't know what to do._

_I'm horrible now. There's nothing good left in me. Just emptiness and the black hole._

_She was the best part about me._

_And now she's gone_

_It's sucking everything in. I don't care anymore._

_How long until everything is lost?_


	4. Chapter 4

Anna's POV

Heaven is an interesting place. There's none of that quintessential floating cloud stuff. I'm not looking down on things as though from an airplane.

I watch them through mirrors.

It turns out that when you look into a mirror, there's more than just your reflection and the plastic and glass. So when Kate stares at herself in the mirror for hours on end like she's trying to pick up some tiny part of me in the glass, I see it.

When my Mom puts her makeup on to cover her puffy red eyes and deep lines. When my Dad tightens his tie, and contemplates, just for a moment, pulling it tighter still, until the world fades forever. When Jesse throws things at his mirrors, to break them, I can watch him through the shards, or through other things.

Really, I can watch through anything that reflects them.

And it's surprisingly easy to find things. The puddle in the street, the rearview mirror of that car they walked by in the parking lot.

You didn't really think that the only thing in that mirror was you, 2-D and flat, did you? Of course not. Human beings are complex. What you see reflected back isn't what you look like. Well I mean, it is. But it's also the summation of your parts, the innermost thoughts from the deepest reaches of your minds, the best representation of that can be seen on the outside.

That's why a bone-thin girl can look into a mirror and see layers of fat. Because that's what she thinks she looks like.

A mirror can't just fabricate its image of you. It can't see you on the outside, so it looks on the inside.

And lucky me, I get to see too.

Brian's POV

We are in the middle of a fire and

The walls

Are falling down around us

As I shout orders and

Run through flames

I can't help but think

How much I

And this fire

Are alike

Sara's POV

Four Months

It has been months, and I am showing. I have to wear baggy sweatshirts now, and old sweatpants. I've taken a leave of absence from work (because I did go back to being a lawyer after Anna).

I don't know what I'm going to do, or how much longer I can go on like this.

Sometimes when I lay in the dark, with my hands on my stomach, I can almost convince myself that this is fourteen years ago. That it is Anna I hold in me, still tiny and full of possibilities, with her future still a rich, un-mapped mystery.

But I know that this child is not she. Because if it were, then I'd feel full and warm inside, just as I did with Anna. This just leaves me feeling emptier than before.

I know Brian suspects something, but I don't think his mind has quite gotten to this point of reasoning yet.

I fall asleep and have a dream.

I am in labor, and sweat drenches my forehead. Brian is nowhere, and I cannot see the nurses' faces.

Suddenly, a bundle of blankets is thrust into my arms.

It is a baby boy. His skin is ice-blue, his eyes closed, his lips to plump strawberries, turned black.

He is stillborn.

I wake up, and I am screaming. Brian is looking at me, his eyes concerned, but tired. We are both used to this.

"What was it?" he asks.

"Anna," I lie. "Calling out to me."

He settles his arms around me, and pulls me close, his warmth surrounding me. He places a hand over my stomach, and I feel my entire body tense in terror, waiting to see if he'll notice…

But no. A small snore escapes his mouth, and I grow slack, completely drained.

Then the baby kicks.

Brain wrenches away from me. I can hear his breath heaving.

"Sara." He hisses into the dark. "What the hell was that?"


End file.
